In an absolutely dark version of Murim, somewhere in a universe far beyond the reach of ordinary imagination, the echoes of death, despair, screams, and violence clung to the air like a parasite.
The sounds of swords cutting through the wind, spears piercing flesh, and arrows whistling through the sky filled the surroundings. Steel clashed against steel, sparks flew, and blood painted the ground beneath a gloomy sky that seemed to mourn the very existence of the world below.
It was a gruesome sight.
And yet, in its own twisted way, it was beautiful.
An atrociously beautiful day for a world that had long since forgotten the meaning of peace.
Somewhere atop a magnificent snow-covered mountain stood a man.
Calling it a mountain, however, almost felt like an insult to its sheer size. Its snow-covered plains stretched as far as the eye could see, resembling an entirely separate world resting above the clouds. Endless fields of white extended toward the horizon, untouched by civilization and seemingly isolated from the rest of creation.
Or at least, they had been untouched.
Now, the pristine white snow had been stained crimson.
And at the center of it all stood one man.
Ryu.
The Heavenly Demon.
His once-pristine white robes were torn and soaked in blood. Countless swords protruded from his body, some buried deep within his flesh, others piercing through his shoulders, thighs, and torso. Blood trickled down his fingertips, dripping onto the snow beneath his feet.
Despite everything, he remained standing.
His breathing was steady, although anyone paying close enough attention could hear the slight strain behind each breath. His body had long since reached its limit. His meridians were practically exhausted, his qi was nearly depleted, and even remaining conscious required an amount of willpower that would have broken an ordinary cultivator a thousand times over.
Yet his expression remained indifferent.
As if the countless wounds covering his body were nothing more than minor inconveniences.
As if the millions of men standing before him were nothing more than an audience that had arrived slightly earlier than expected.
And what an audience they were.
Armies stretched across the snowy plains, their numbers so immense that counting them would have been a pointless endeavor. Sect masters, imperial generals, demonic cultivators, righteous martial artists, hidden masters who had spent centuries avoiding the affairs of the world, and countless other powerful individuals had gathered for one purpose.
To kill a single man.
Not a kingdom.
Not an entire sect.
One man.
Ryu, the Heavenly Demon.
The man who had fought entire armies alone.
The man who always walked ahead of everyone else, venturing into places where even the bravest warriors would hesitate to tread.
Always alone.
Always at the front.
And now, standing before millions of enemies with a body that should have collapsed long ago, he was still the last man standing.
But to understand how a man like Ryu came to exist, one would have to look far beyond this blood-soaked mountain.
Far beyond Murim itself.
One would have to return to the beginning.
To a world called Earth.
You see, Ryu wasn't originally from this world.
Before becoming the Heavenly Demon, before earning a name that would send entire sects into a state of panic, before his very existence became something that armies were willing to sacrifice millions of lives to erase, he had been an ordinary human being living an ordinary life.
Well, relatively ordinary.
If there was anything particularly special about his life back then, it was the sheer amount of bullshit he seemed to encounter.
Problems, disappointments, pain, betrayal, and all the other lovely experiences life apparently enjoyed handing out to him.
He endured more than he believed the average person should have had to endure, and for a long time, he tried to make sense of it.
He remembered a saying he had once believed in.
"God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers."
Funny, really.
Because eventually, he did become the strongest.
Just not in the way he had imagined.
Back then, that saying had been a source of comfort. Whenever life became unbearable, whenever things seemed to fall apart around him, he would remind himself that perhaps there was a reason for everything.
Perhaps he was being tested.
Perhaps all the pain was supposed to lead somewhere.
Perhaps, if he could just endure a little longer, everything would eventually make sense.
And so he endured.
He endured until enduring became second nature.
He endured until he no longer knew how to ask for help.
He endured until he convinced himself that relying on anyone else was unnecessary.
After all, what was the point of explaining his problems to people who already had problems of their own? Why burden others with things he could handle himself? Why open his mouth when he could simply swallow his feelings, put on a smile, and carry on as if nothing had happened?
He had family.
He had friends.
He had people around him.
But having people around you and having someone you could truly talk to when it mattered were two entirely different things.
And somewhere along the way, he stopped trying to find the latter.
He became more independent, more reserved, and increasingly comfortable with being alone. He stopped going out of his way to solve everyone else's problems. He stopped exhausting himself trying to be there for people who weren't necessarily there for him.
Not because he suddenly hated everyone.
He was simply tired.
Tired of caring so much.
Tired of trying so hard.
Tired of constantly picking himself up when there was nobody around to help him do it.
Eventually, something inside him changed.
He didn't become heartless.
He just stopped handing his heart to everyone who asked for it.
And for a while, that was enough.
Until she came along.
Isabella.
If Ryu's life had been a desert, then Isabella had been a pool of water sitting right in the middle of it.
And, God, did that man drink.
He drank until he forgot what it felt like to be thirsty. Until he started looking forward to tomorrow because there was a possibility that she would be there. Until the world, which had once felt so dull and monotonous, began to possess a little color again.
For the first time in a long time, he had someone.
Not just another person to spend time with. Not just another face in the crowd.
His person.
Someone who made the ordinary moments feel worthwhile. Someone whose presence could make a terrible day bearable. Someone who gave him a reason to look beyond the problems that had consumed so much of his life.
She became the exception to almost every rule he had made for himself.
And that was precisely where the problem began.
Ryu had spent so long learning how to live without needing anyone that when someone finally made him feel as though he didn't have to, he didn't know how to handle it.
He loved her with everything he had.
Perhaps too much.
She became his comfort, his happiness, his weakness, and eventually, his obsession.
He had spent years learning how to survive pain, but nobody had taught him what to do with the possibility of losing the one person who had made life feel worth living again.
Unfortunately, life had a rather cruel sense of humor.
As the saying went, all great things must come to an end.
And Ryu learned that lesson on Valentine's Day.
He had taken an early leave from work that day.
There was a ring in his pocket.
A proposal planned down to the smallest detail.
And a smile on his face that he probably hadn't worn in quite some time.
He had spent hours preparing the house, decorating it with everything he could think of that Isabella might like. He had looked up ideas online, rearranged things more times than he cared to admit, and put genuine thought into every little detail.
He wanted it to be perfect.
Not because he believed that a few decorations and expensive gifts could somehow measure his love, but because he wanted her to remember that day.
He wanted to see her face when she walked through the door.
He wanted to hear her laugh, watch her eyes widen, and maybe even see her cry a little.
And, of course, there were flowers.
Lilies.
Her favorite.
Ryu sat on the edge of their bed, holding the bouquet in his hands as he waited for her to come home.
He could already imagine how the conversation would go.
The teasing.
The nervous laughter.
The way he would probably struggle to get the words out despite having rehearsed them in his head a hundred times.
He was nervous, sure.
But beneath that nervousness was something he hadn't felt in a long time.
Hope.
He wanted a future with her.
A real one.
And he was ready to ask for it.
Then came the sound of the doorknob.
A hurried rustling.
The unmistakable sound of someone struggling to get the door open.
Ryu lifted his head.
The door swung open.
Isabella stepped inside.
Except she wasn't alone.
Her back was turned toward him, and before she had even fully crossed the threshold, a man leaned in and kissed her.
Not a greeting on the cheek.
Not some accidental brush of the lips.
A kiss.
A deliberate, intimate kiss, exchanged in the doorway of the home Ryu shared with her.
For a moment, time seemed to slow.
The man was the first to notice him.
Perhaps it was the decorations. Perhaps it was the flowers. Perhaps it was the sight of a man sitting quietly on the bed, staring at them with a bouquet in his hands.
Whatever the reason, the stranger's eyes met Ryu's.
And he stopped.
The kiss ended.
Isabella, sensing something was wrong, finally turned around.
Then she saw him.
Her eyes moved from Ryu to the flowers in his hands, then to the decorations covering the room, the gifts arranged nearby, and all the little details that made it painfully obvious how much effort had gone into preparing for that evening.
She understood immediately.
Whatever excuses she might have considered making vanished before she could even speak.
Because there was no misunderstanding to hide behind.
No convenient explanation that could undo what had just happened.
Ryu looked at her.
Then at the man.
Then back at her.
His expression barely changed.
But something behind his eyes did.
"Haa…"
A quiet sigh escaped him.
"Honestly, I wanna say you would never do this to me."
He lowered his gaze to the flowers for a moment, his fingers tightening around their stems.
"I'd want to believe in my love for you, even if it was just me being delusional."
He looked back up at her.
"But you didn't even give me the gift of that."
Isabella's lips parted.
"Ryu, I—"
"In our house?"
His voice wasn't loud.
That somehow made it worse.
"In our fucking house? With clothes I bought for you? After everything we've been through?"
His jaw tightened.
"What have I ever done to you that makes you think I don't even deserve the respect of you not doing this here?"
"I…"
"No."
He shook his head.
"No, you don't."
For the first time, Ryu moved.
He carefully placed the bouquet on the bed beside him, almost as if he were worried about damaging the flowers.
Then his hand moved toward the handgun secured in his vest holster.
The man's face changed.
Isabella froze.
Ryu drew the weapon and aimed it at the stranger's leg.
The gunshot shattered the silence.
The man collapsed with a scream, clutching his leg as he writhed on the floor.
Ryu stared down at him with an expression of pure disbelief.
"Remember when I told you it was only ever gonna be us, darling?"
He didn't take his eyes off the man.
"And that I'd kill you if you ever did something like this?"
The stranger screamed again.
Ryu tilted his head slightly.
"I'm guessing you thought I was joking. That I was just like every other guy in this generation who says shit he doesn't mean."
He looked genuinely disappointed.
"That's crazy."
The man continued to howl.
Ryu's expression twisted into disgust.
"Bro, why the fuck are you hitting those high notes for another man? I don't play for that team."
Another gunshot.
Then another.
And finally, one that ended the man's screaming altogether.
Silence returned to the room.
Ryu stood there for a moment, looking down at the body.
Then he turned toward Isabella.
She hadn't moved.
Her face had gone pale, and her eyes were fixed on him as though she were seeing a stranger wearing the face of the man she loved.
Perhaps, in that moment, she was.
Ryu looked at her for a long time.
The woman he had wanted to marry.
The woman he had planned to build a life with.
The woman he had spent countless nights talking to, laughing with, and imagining a future beside.
He could still remember the little things about her. Her favorite flowers. The things that made her smile. The way she looked when she was happy.
He remembered everything.
And somehow, that was the worst part.
"Isabella, darling."
His voice softened.
"I love you."
Her eyes widened.
"Ryu…"
"I'll be seeing you."
"No!"
She finally moved, taking a desperate step toward him.
"Wait, please—"
The gunshot came before she could finish.
She fell.
Ryu stood motionless.
For a few seconds, he simply looked at her.
There were no grand speeches. No dramatic accusations. No final declaration of how much he had loved her.
Just silence.
The decorations remained in place.
The gifts remained unopened.
And the lilies lay on the bed where he had carefully placed them.
Everything was exactly as he had intended it to be.
Except for the future.
Ryu looked down at the gun in his hand.
A bitter smile crossed his face.
"Well…"
He let out a humorless breath.
"That went to shit."
He raised the weapon to his own head.
And pulled the trigger.
Back to the second life.
"A million versus one, huh?"
Ryu's bloodied lips curled into a faint smile.
"I like my odds."
Then he moved.
What followed was less a battle and more an execution of everything that dared to stand against him.
The moment Ryu stepped forward, the snowy plains erupted.
His foot struck the ground, and the force of his movement sent cracks racing through the frozen earth. Before the nearest warriors could even react, he was already among them.
A sword flashed.
Heads rolled.
A spear thrust toward his chest, only for Ryu to catch its shaft, wrench it from its owner's hands, and drive it through the man standing behind him.
His movements were terrifyingly efficient.
No wasted motions.
No unnecessary flourishes.
No dramatic declarations between strikes.
Just death.
He moved through the armies like a natural disaster given human form. One moment he stood in the middle of a formation, and the next, the formation no longer existed. Martial techniques collided with his body, blades tore through his robes, and powerful qi explosions swallowed the ground beneath his feet.
Yet he continued forward.
He fought like a man who had already accepted his own death.
And perhaps that was what made him so frightening.
There was nothing left for him to protect.
Nothing left for him to lose.
Every strike that landed was answered with another body hitting the snow. Every attempt to surround him ended with the surrounding warriors being reduced to corpses. Even the most experienced masters found themselves struggling to comprehend what they were witnessing.
The Heavenly Demon wasn't fighting to survive.
He was making damn sure that anyone who had come to kill him would remember exactly why they had been afraid of him in the first place.
The righteous sects unleashed their combined sword formations.
Ryu shattered them.
The demonic cultivators summoned their most devastating techniques.
Ryu walked through them.
Hidden masters who had spent generations cultivating in isolation emerged from the shadows, only to discover that the man they had considered an abomination was something far worse than they had imagined.
He was a monster.
A calamity.
A man whose existence had become an insult to the natural order of Murim.
And he was still standing.
Time lost its meaning.
Minutes became hours.
The snow disappeared beneath layers of blood and bodies. The sky grew darker, and the wind carried the metallic scent of slaughter across the mountain.
Eventually, even the armies began to understand.
They weren't going to win.
Not because they lacked numbers.
Not because their masters were weak.
But because the man standing before them simply refused to fall.
Still, they kept coming.
Millions had marched here with the promise of glory, revenge, wealth, or the simple satisfaction of witnessing the Heavenly Demon finally brought to his knees.
They would receive none of those things.
By the time the final waves reached him, Ryu's body had become a collection of wounds barely held together by sheer stubbornness.
His white robes had long since lost their color.
Swords protruded from his flesh, and blood poured from injuries that would have killed any ordinary martial artist several times over. His qi was nearly exhausted, his limbs felt impossibly heavy, and every breath scraped against his chest.
He knew he was reaching the end.
He could feel it.
His body was failing.
His vision blurred.
The world around him became a distant mixture of screaming, steel, and crimson snow.
And yet, when the last of his enemies finally stood before him, Ryu raised his head.
There were still thousands of them.
Perhaps more.
He couldn't be bothered to count anymore.
A faint laugh escaped his throat.
"Seriously?"
He spat blood onto the snow.
"How many fucking people do you have?"
Nobody answered.
The surviving warriors stared at him, weapons trembling in their hands.
Some were terrified.
Others were simply too exhausted to feel anything at all.
And a few, despite everything they had witnessed, still clung to the hope that the man before them would finally collapse.
Ryu looked across the battlefield.
At the countless bodies.
At the broken weapons.
At the millions who had come for him and the countless others who had died trying.
He had fought them all.
Again.
And again.
And again.
For how long?
He couldn't even remember anymore.
All he knew was that every time they thought they had finally cornered him, every time they believed they had gathered enough power to end his existence, he had somehow managed to stand back up.
Until there was nobody left to challenge him.
Until the entire world had to gather its strength just to bring him down.
And now, finally, his body was giving out.
Ryu took one last step forward.
His legs nearly buckled.
He forced them straight.
Then he laughed.
A genuine laugh this time.
It started quietly before growing louder, echoing across the desolate plains. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and his shoulders trembled with the effort.
The remaining warriors stared at him as if he had finally lost his mind.
Perhaps he had.
After everything, who could blame him?
Ryu inhaled slowly.
He gathered the last scraps of qi remaining within his body, forcing them through damaged meridians that could barely withstand the strain.
Then he projected his voice across the entire mountain.
His words carried through the wind, reaching every surviving warrior, every hidden master watching from a distance, and every citizen who had gathered to witness the conclusion of an era.
"I have won…"
His voice faltered for a moment.
He steadied himself.
"Again."
A few warriors lowered their weapons.
Ryu's gaze swept across them.
"For the last… I don't even know how long anymore, you've sent countless people after me."
He coughed, blood staining his lips.
"You thought that if you just threw enough bodies at me, you'd finally break me."
His fingers tightened around the sword in his hand.
"Make me kneel."
He looked toward the gloomy sky.
Then, with what little strength remained in his body, he spread his arms slightly.
"I ASK…"
His voice thundered across the plains.
"ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!"
The words struck the battlefield like a heavenly decree.
Nobody moved.
Nobody dared to speak.
Ryu grinned.
A terrible, bloodied grin belonging to a man who had fought the entire world and somehow managed to make the world afraid of losing.
"Tell them."
His voice grew quieter, but the qi carrying it ensured that every soul present heard him.
"Tell them all."
He raised his chin.
"There will never be another me."
The wind swept across the battlefield, carrying his words into the distance.
"Tell your children."
His body swayed.
"Tell their children."
One of the swords embedded in his torso shifted as he moved, sending fresh blood running down his robes.
"Tell every bastard who ever thought they could bring me to my knees…"
He took another breath.
The last one he could truly call his own.
"That Ryu, the Heavenly Demon…"
His eyes remained fixed toward the north.
"…did not, and will never, even in death, fall to his knees."
And then he fell silent.
His lips closed.
His breathing stopped.
The last remnants of qi dissipated into the cold air.
Yet Ryu remained standing.
His body, pierced by countless swords and drenched in the blood of millions, stood upright against the wind. His head remained raised, his gaze fixed toward the north, and his feet remained firmly planted in the crimson snow.
He had died.
But he had not knelt.
For a long time, nobody moved.
The battlefield, which only moments earlier had been filled with the sounds of slaughter, became so quiet that even the wind seemed reluctant to disturb it.
Millions of warriors stared at the figure standing before them.
The Heavenly Demon.
The man they had feared.
The man they had hated.
The man they had spent so many years trying to destroy.
And in the end, after all their schemes, alliances, sacrifices, and overwhelming numbers, they had received the one thing none of them had ever wanted to give him.
A victory.
Not a victory of survival.
Not a victory of conquest.
But a victory of will.
Ryu had fought until there was nothing left to give.
And even then, he had refused to surrender the one thing they had wanted from him most.
His dignity.
One cultivator lowered his sword.
Then another.
An elderly sect master, a man whose name had once commanded the respect of entire provinces, slowly bent his knees.
He lowered his head.
His hands came together in a respectful martial salute.
The movement spread.
One by one, warriors across the blood-soaked plains began to kneel.
Sect masters.
Imperial generals.
Demonic cultivators.
Righteous martial artists.
Hidden masters who had once considered themselves untouchable.
Even those who had spent their entire lives cursing the Heavenly Demon found themselves lowering their heads.
Millions knelt before a single dead man.
Hands cupped.
Heads bowed.
The entire mountain became a sea of lowered figures, all facing the same direction.
North.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody celebrated.
Nobody dared to claim that they had won.
For they had finally succeeded in killing Ryu, the Heavenly Demon.
And somehow, standing among the corpses of millions, they had never felt smaller.
The wind swept across the snowy plains once more.
It passed through the torn white robes of the man who had conquered death a thousand times, through the swords embedded in his body, and across the crimson ground beneath his feet.
Ryu remained standing.
And for the first time in the history of Murim, the entire world bowed before a man who would never bow back.